Report says social media giants provide ‘safe space for racists’
Published August 7, 2021
The recent surge in reporting on antisemitism spurred through social media is real, and the five largest social media platforms have emboldened racists to feel safe in their spaces, according to a new report. from the Center For Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
According to the report, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok failed to act on 84% of posts spreading anti-Jewish hatred and propaganda reported via the platforms’ official complaints system.
CCDH, is a UK/US non-profit organization and has tracked hundreds of antisemitic posts over a six-week period in early 2021. The posts, which included Nazi, neo-Nazi and white supremacist content, received up to 7.3 million impressions.
The study tracked exactly 714 posts, which it says violated the various platforms policies, with less than 1 out of every six posts flagged or removed by moderators.
The report says the platforms showed a dismal record of acting on antisemitic conspiracy theories, including tropes about “Jewish puppeteers”, the Rothschild family, and George Soros, as well as no t doing enough to stop the spread of disinformation blaming the Jewish people for the cause of the pandemic. The report also points out the massive lack of focus by the platforms in preventing posts regarding Holocaust denial, with as many as 80% of posts denying or downplaying the Holocaust received zero enforcement action.
Who is the worst offender? According to the report, that honor belongs to Facebook, whose moderators reacted to just 10.9% of posts, even after the introduction of tougher guidelines on antisemitic content last year. In November 2020, the company updated its hate speech policy to ban content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.
Twitter did not perform much better in the actions of enforcement. The platform removed 11% of posts or accounts while failing to act on hashtags such as #holohoax (often used by Holocaust deniers) or #JewWorldOrder (used to promote anti-Jewish global conspiracies). Instagram also failed to act on antisemitic hashtags, as well as videos inciting violence towards Jewish people.
You can read the entire report here.
